april 1961.
Again, the time is approximate, judging by my height, wardrobe and whatnot. First I put this in june, but then seeing the plants just sprouting leaves, it's rather april.
We went to a village on romanian border, where Teja and teča (the mother's sister's husband, that kind of uncle, though in this case it was one step away, since Teja was mom's sister-by-aunt) were teaching in the elementary school. We went to see Jaca.
They lived in a teachers' apartment, which was in a big old house, with brick paved yard. The house was not in the best condition, though, but nobody seemed to mind. They were just happy to have each other, a modest but stable career, future ahead and a surviving child. They had a son before, but he died within a month or two.
Note the house gown. Every married woman at the time had one. Actually, seeing the pattern, my mom had one made of the same cloth. Now whether they bought the cloth together, or the assortment of patterns was so limited, is anyone's guess. The cloth was called zenana, and was smooth, shiny and soft. Years later, in november of 1972, I'll ask mom to sew me a shirt of that cloth, and it worked great.
Of the village I remember only the very wide main street, where the school was. The school impressed me with its big windows, and so many of them - it was probably one of these new ones, where the guidelines demanded lots of light. And it was tall, there were few steps from the street level to the ground floor.
On the other side of the street there was a true artesian well (which everyone caled arterski instead of arteški; furthermore the pump behind our house was also called arterski, even though the main difference is that artesian needs no pump, the water just flows under its own pressure). I didn't know how that worked, seeing water flow without any wheel to run a pump was a miracle in itself.
There were several other shots, including one of me with a bunch of kids from the school, and one other teacher. No clue who they were.
That's the time when I contracted my first allergy, or so my parents thought. To eggs. I'd get a circular pink stain on my thigh, not too many of them, I actually don't remember ever seeing more than one [of them]. It was about coin sized, and appeared those few times somehow after I ate eggs (scrambled in a small pot). Ended up eating no eggs for a year or two, and then I guess I accidentally ate some somewhere and nothing happened to me. What it really was, who knows, maybe an insect bite.
Mentions: september 1964., 25-VI-1969., Jasmina Sentović (Jaca), Vesela Senić (Teja), in serbian
10-VII-2022 - 25-III-2026